Multiply 365 Day 316 - Updates? We don't need no stinking updates

     I guess it is about time for my monthly update. Okay, so I don't have a monthly update per se, but it has been a little while since I talked about me here.  Maybe that is a good thing, at times when I talk too much about me I feel I come off as whiny.  But recently I haven't been talking about myself as much, maybe my life isn't whiny enough to be blog worthy.

     Because really life has been okay.  As far as work goes, well, it is work.  By definition it can't be all great, but it's not all bad either.  No real complaints, and hey, I did get another pair of hockey tickets for Monday night's game against the Bruins.  How much bitching can one do when they show up for work and someone hands them two $210 ducats to a Pens game?  Really?

      And my personal life is still moving along pretty swimmingly too.  Jen and I have been together for 2 and half months now, hardly long in the grand scheme of things, but every relationship has to start somewhere, and I would like to think we are starting off pretty darn well.  The biggest problem is the problem that plagues all online relationships I'd imagine, just the desire to want to be there when things aren't going well and knowing you can't be.  Sure, you do the best you can with what you have, but there is something to being able to look someone in the eyes, or take them in your arms when they are upset and online you just can't do that.  Not that we are awash in bad times, just the opposite in fact, she makes me happy everyday.  Sometimes it is just a simple note in my email at work, an evening where we are chatting and the time flows effortlessly by, or going to the mailbox and seeing something in there from her, whatever the means she just makes every day a little more special.  

     And there my friends is the blogging problem.  How can I come here and bitch about my life when there is nothing to bitch about?  If being happy means I don't blog as much, well I can live with that.

Multiply 365 Day 315 - Breaking blog

Okay, I am sitting here, the TV is on and because it is Saturday afternoon, about the only thing I have found worth watching is college football. Not that watching a football game is bad, but I have no real rooting interest in either of the teams that are on right now.

That being said, I was troubled by something I just saw. There was a breaking news item. Now to me, something that is breaking news is of relative import, a national tragedy or crisis, maybe something that the President will be commenting on later in the evening. Instead what the breaking news was was that Herman Cain, whose poll numbers have been floundering of recent because of alleged extramarital affairs and claims of sexual harassment, was dropping his bid to win the Republican nomination to run for President..

Sorry kinds, a candidate whose poll numbers were running in the single digits deciding to up and quit his primary campaign just isn't worth of breaking into regularly scheduled programming. Does it have a place in the newcast in the evening? Sure it does, but it isn't of such great significance that normal programming needs to be interrupted.

I realize that news is now a business, and the more shock and awe a newscast can generate, the more eyeballs it has the potential to attract, the more advertisers will pay to be there. But the more one cries wolf, the less chance people will listen when an actual wolf is at the door.

Multiply 365 Day 314 - Scientologists taste like chicken

It happened again. I had mentioned the strange disappearance of "Jesus on a Stick" guy, how he used to be on the same street corner every Thursday, shouting at all of us sinners and non believers, as if the power of his voice, and his stick could somehow shed light into our utterly dark souls. Then a movie crew came into town, and with it the Grand Poobah of Scientologists, Tom Cruise and before you could know it, "Jesus on a Stick" guy was gone. Now maybe it was just a coincidence that those two events should happen so close together, maybe not, who knows.
But now it has happened again. The master of all things Scientological is still in town, and another of those familiar faces has disappeared, someone that I call "Fucking Chicken Lady". She earned that name from the day I first saw her, she was standing outside our store with a male companion. Nothing unusual about that, there is a bus stop there after all and people do still take buses to all parts of the city. What was unusual was the conversation she was having with her male companion, which basically consisted of her yelling at him. There weren't even any pauses to breathe in her diatribe, nor breaks for punctuation in her speech. It was like something out of "The Exorcist" or something, but instead of channeling anti-Christian words, instead what was coming out of her mouth sounded like this, "Where'smyfuckingchicken?Yousaidyouweregoingtogetsomefuckingchicken.Ididn'tgetnofuckingchicken.Where'smyfuckingchicken?" With that one frenzied, poultry laced diatribe, "Fucking Chicken" lady was born.
The thing is, now she too is gone. She hasn't been seen in better than a month. If one person disappears it is just a coincidence, if two disappear it starts to feel like a trend. But what is the end game? Why are the Scientologists collecting Christians and chicken lovers? Maybe if it were rotisserie chicken it could be explained away as a fascination with sticks. Or maybe there is some diabolical experiment going on to determine which came first, the Christian or the egg.
Whatever the case may be, I am just hoping they don't come looking for French fry lovers, because then I am screwed.